My Myriad of Experiences = Fail?

Believe it or not, my year in AmeriCorps is nearing the end. I still have until the end of July, but when you’re the planner that I am, that means it’s time to look ahead and start making decisions about what is next. In college, I was always that student who was ready to plan out the next semester only two weeks into the semester at hand. I’m still like that and in October 2010; I was already scanning job listings at organizations in San Francisco. Now that the time has arrived however, the prospect of moving on is terrifying me.

It’s not scary because of the new city, moving, or leaving my community, my friends and family. It’s scary because the last few years of my career have severely damaged my self worth. I’ve had some really awful work experiences and blamed myself for them. It’s something I do, that I’m working on, but when something bad happens, I too quickly assume I’ve done something to deserve it. In any case, I’m scared that I’m not capable of having a grown-up job because the last two that I’ve had have resulted in my being degraded in ways I didn’t realize were still allowed in the workplace. To top that off, I’m also scared because I feel like I have nothing to offer anymore.

I received a wonderful letter from one of my dearest friends today. She and I have a oddly, similar school experience. We both homeschooled all 12 years (never knowing each other, I might add), attended the same undergraduate institution, took a couple of years off and returned to school to finish our graduate degrees in our late 20s. Our friendship is such that I’ve never been afraid to admit my fears about myself or my life to her and we’ve often discussed how confusing our past 10 years have been. Her letter was sent today without any prompting and she said something that I couldn’t have said better myself, “I have the weirdest resume; it attests to my lack of commitment and my propensity to try way too many different things. I tried to minimize how scattered my work life has been through my twenties, but it was difficult.” How immensely true are her words! I feel as though my work life is one, giant scrambled mess and I made it that way on purpose! Now, as I look to the future and really do want to settle down both personally and professionally, I find myself fearful that I’ve made such a mess of myself that no one will ever take me seriously. I mean come on, who’s going to put faith in a resume that includes: piano, fire fighting, teaching, volunteering, juvenile justice, public administration, marketing, serving, writing music and national service!? Sure, it was a ton of fun to do but now that I long to be taken seriously as a manager who is seriously going to look at that and be impressed?

I’ve been so lucky in my young life to have the opportunity to try out a lot of stuff. I remember year one in college, my mom wrote me a letter. She encouraged me not to look at the college experience as one where I would work hard at the things I was asked to do and succeed, but one where I saw a giant to-do list of opportunity. A list where I could, and should, try anything I wanted and never be afraid to fail in places or decide some things just weren't for me. It was wonderful advice. I did my basic stuff but pushed myself in new, scary ways and the experiences I’ve had were priceless. The problem now is that I did that after college too. I tried lots of stuff and now my resume reads like my giant to-do list with some great successes, but some things I tried and didn’t like as much. Nothing long-term, no obvious theme. I like to think that there is an underlying theme though: that I love to serve people. Not volunteering (although I do love doing that to some degree), but as my career. I love the nonprofit sector and that is my theme: to serve the nonprofit sector in order to meet the many, unique needs of our society.

My mother's advice was perfect and I am glad that I took it past college into my 20s but I'm not sure the professional world will agree with me. I only hope that the readers of my resume can find my theme and not only respect it but the diverse amount of experience I’ve chosen to have thus far. If not, I’m doomed because it’s all I have and it’s truly, all I am.